


Chill, Linden.

by Lilysmum



Category: The Killing
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 12:37:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7103761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lilysmum/pseuds/Lilysmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is set mid-Season 1. This fic expands on something that happened in my early fics My Place and Holder's Place, but can totally stand alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chill, Linden.

Forty hours they’d been working.

Forty hours straight; accomplishing almost nothing.

Forty hours of knocking on doors and talking to assholes and listening to lies. Forty fucking hours of looking at films and files and phones, of driving around, and waiting for things that didn’t happen.

At least Holder thinks it’s about forty hours, he’s beyond being able to do any mental math, that’s for sure. Its dark, and there aren’t many cars on the road, that’s about all he knows, really, and all he can think of is that both his brain and his body just need to _stop_.

This is his life now, suddenly, and completely. Thanks to his hot and also ice-cold new boss, who was only supposed to spend the first day with him but now apparently is running his entire life. He’d been told there’d likely be a slow start to his new job, an orientation period that would allow him to ease into it.  But no, it’s a full on, flat out homicide investigation.  He hadn’t taken what she’d said the first day seriously, but he does now. The clock never stops.

And he wouldn’t have it any other way. ‘Cause it beats hellouta his old life, the life of boredom and NA meetings and crushing loneliness where the best thing that ever happened to him was a fresh bag of party mix and unlimited internet. Still, he doesn’t even know a word that could describe the way that he feels right now. He’s exhausted. His brain is fried. His bones ache and his eyes feel like two piss-holes in the snow.   

He doesn’t even know what he needs. Well he does, but it’s impossible. So he’d settle for a hot shower and his lonely bed, even though he’s beyond sleep.  He’s wired on a mix of caffeine and nicotine as well punch drunk on the scent of his bitchy boss’s hot little body, which is always right beside him and also completely out of reach.

 

He can never get her off his mind, Linden. Thinking about her both exhilarates and exhausts him by turns, just as badly as the punishing schedule she has imposed on them. There’s also a long list of completely solid reasons why he should not be thinking about her:

She’s his boss.

She’s engaged.

She’s leaving town.

She doesn’t like him.

She’s not his type.

Oh and there’s also his celibacy, can’t forget about that.

And as a bonus, he kind of doesn’t like her.

What he is, though, is drawn to her; he has no choice in the matter. It’s like an itch he can’t scratch, a vague and unreachable feeling, something that’s always just there, like a craving.  It made no sense to him at first but he’s starting to understand it now.

She’s fucking _engaged_ , to some guy whose name he doesn’t want to know, and for some reason this irritates him to no end. Because she doesn’t act like she’s engaged. She doesn’t seem like the type that would be hitching herself up to somebody else. If you ask him, she’s the classic lone wolf – she’s strong enough and smart enough to not have to be a member of any pack.  And it makes no sense to him that she’s quitting and moving to sunny California. Every time she is supposed to go she bails, she’s missed like three flights already.

 What it does seem like, to him, is that solving this case is the most important thing in the world to her.

At first he thought it would be a relief when she went. Now he’s actually hoping that she stays. It’s hard for him to admit it but he wants to be with her, not only to work with her, but also to just be with her in any way he can.  He wants her attention, as frustrating and unsatisfying as that is. He doesn’t want to want it, he’s not proud of the fact that he wants it, but he wants it, nonetheless. And it’s not about her general overall hotness, either.  Okay, it is, sort of. She can wear those ugly ass sweaters all she wants; he knows there’s a banging hot body under there.

But the real thing, the real thing that gets to him, is just how she _is_ , doing the work.

Calm. Methodical. Patient.  She always knows what to do next, all the steps, and how to talk to people. He fucking _admires_ her, is what it is.  She is, he realized right off, someone who could teach him something. About how to be, detective-wise, for sure, and maybe in other ways too.

And there’s more - there’s something else about her that intrigues the hell out of him.

He could tell this right off, too – Detective Linden’s got something shattered inside of her. A deep wound, some terrible old hurt, scabbed over maybe, but that will never heal. She does a good job of covering it up, and she can likely fool a lot of people, but she can’t fool Holder.  Because he’s got one too, one of those hurts, that he will have to deal with forever. And if Linden can do this thing the way that she does, this job, this life, then he figures maybe there’s hope for him. Maybe he has a chance to be good at it too.

She’s annoying as hell though. She’s driving him crazy. Not telling him stuff, not giving him a chance to do anything real, and basically not giving a fuck about him or how it is for him. It’s like she’s got all the marbles and she wants him to just sit and watch, or something. It’s clear that she doesn’t trust him.

Whatever. He’s done waiting, he has a plan.  He’s going to get there early tomorrow, before her. He’s going to talk to that teacher alone, man to man.  He’ll work him, inch by inch, the way that he can. The guy knows stuff he ain’t telling, he can feel it. Holder smiles slightly, making eye contact with his own ghost-like reflection in the passenger side window of Linden’s stupid little car, fantasizing about telling her, in the morning when she shows up all ready to start another endless day, that he’s gotten a full confession out of the guy.

Linden’s driving him back to his car so he can go home – she’s finally decided there’s nothing else that can be done for the moment. And she’s got a mood on, she’s not talking. Just curt little nods every time he tries to start a conversation, deliberately ignoring some pretty decent one liners he manages to come up with. He watches her squeezing the shit out of the steering wheel with her knobby little sexy little no-nonsense little hands.  If she’s so engaged, where’s the ring, huh??  Maybe she doesn’t like to wear it because she really doesn’t want to marry the guy. That’s Holder’s theory, anyway. He considers asking her about it, the ring, he definitely remembers seeing one the first day. Tonight’s probably not the best time to raise the subject though. He’ll save it for when he feels like bugging her tomorrow. Or for the next time she misses a flight.

She makes his brain and his balls ache, and it’s enough, already, fuck, forty hours. So he gives up trying to talk to her and amuses himself by imagining that long hot shower that waits for him at home, visions of his bed floating behind his sore eyelids like prizes at a carnival.

“Shit,” Linden says now, her soft voice pulling him out of the zone, and he opens his eyes and turns his head to see her messing with her ponytail. She keeps her hair like she keeps the rest of herself, all tied up tight. She’s got one hand on the wheel and the other is trying to untangle her hair from the elastic hair-tie thing.  He can tell it won’t happen, not like that anyway. A big loop of her actually really beautiful hair is wrapped around the elastic and it’s not going to come loose without the attention of two hands, he knows. He knows about those hair elastic things from looking after his sister’s kids. His niece is a pro at getting her hair mixed up in them, and he’s learned how to deal with them because if there’s one thing Stephen Holder has learned to avoid in his life its females losing their shit.

“Chill, Linden,” he says now, and actually reaches out to still her hand where it’s tugging blindly at the tangle at the back of her neck.

It feels strange for him to touch her hand, and even stranger that she doesn’t recoil from it.

“Just drive, alright?” he tells her, “I wanna get back to my car in one piece, if you don’t mind.” He actually grasps her hand and guides it back to the steering wheel, “I got this,” he says quietly now, amazed that she hasn’t smacked him, or bitten off a few choice words.

Linden shakes her head in frustration.

“It’s been in there too long,” she tells him, an edge in her voice that tells him she’s fried too, she’s just done. “It’s giving me a headache.” She’s likely sick of him as well, he figures, and fuck, it has been a miserable day. Day and a half. Almost two days.

“Shhh,” he says, hoping it doesn’t sound like he is talking to a child, “Lemme do it…Okay it’s left at the next lights,” he tells her, directing her to where he’d left his car this morning, although now  it doesn’t seem so imperative that they even get there, “I’m good with these things.”

He unclasps his seatbelt and leans over to untangle her hair gently, slowly, without pulling at all or eliciting one single snarky comment from her. And when he finishes, and tucks the offending hair-tie into the change compartment of the console between their seats, Linden sighs. And then she sighs again, softly _,_ even maybe a little bit _gratefully_.

The sound hits him in his lower spine and then goes straight to his junk and shit actually _moves_ the tiniest bit. Fuck, it was inevitable.

“Thanks, Holder,” Linden tells him, looking over at him for a split second and puffing out another little sigh.  She reaches back to rub the back of her neck, messing up her hair and Holder doesn’t know what possesses him, he will never really know why he did it, but he joins her, his tired hand reaching over and his fingers working themselves through what feels like a mass of auburn silk. It’s soft, so soft, and heavy.  He wonders if the guy, the absentee-supposed-fiancé-dick-wad, appreciates what he’s got.

“That’s good,” Linden tells him, and then shakes her head again, “that’s so good.” 

And then he can’t stop, he can’t. He knows he’s risking his job, and probably his neck as well but sometimes his judgement isn’t the greatest and he carries on until Linden stops him with a shrug of her shoulders and just a hint of a smile as she stops for a red light. Holder doesn’t mean to but he stuffs both his hands into his jacket pockets like a kid who’s been slapped.

Linden stares fixedly ahead and the silence in the car is as thick and heavy as her hair was in his hand moments ago. He knows it’s not a good time to open his mouth but he feels he better do something to diffuse this dangerous new energy that has suddenly filled the car.

“Yeah well just don’t be expectin’ anything else, Linden,” he tells her, “like I won’t be tryna kiss you or anything, now, just in case you were wonderin’, you know, the rules about personnel…engaging in…inappropriate…” his voice trails off as he realizes he is just making the situation worse.

She doesn’t even acknowledge him for several long agonizing seconds but as the light turns green she takes a look in the rear-view and drives right through his left hand turn to make a quick right into the dark parking lot of a boarded up service station.

Holder sighs heavily, gets ready to apologize. She parks in the back corner under a giant tree and turns off the car. Before he knows what to think she is taking off her seatbelt and turning slightly sideways in her seat to face him.

“Look, Linden, I’m…” he begins, before she interrupts him.

“Want to?” she asks. Words he cannot even believe floating to him out of the near darkness.

“’Course I do,” The words are out of his mouth before he can even think them.

Holder thinks maybe this is the first time she has ever actually looked directly at him. He can feel her eyes drifting all over his face while she perches half-sideways, waiting for him. She’s leaning over and reaching for him even before he finishes shrugging out of his jacket and after the first brush of her surprisingly soft mouth there is nothing tentative at all. He tries to hold himself back, afraid of what his long-frustrated libido might unleash but he very quickly realizes that Linden doesn’t want that, doesn’t want anything slow or polite or restrained. He puts his hand back behind her neck and tilts her head to kiss her like the starving man that he is. In just a few seconds he’s helping her swing her leg over to plant herself across his lap and then it’s just plain craziness.

He can’t think, or speak, or move except to hold her and taste the hunger that is in her, too. 

It’s a blur, an insane blur of Linden’s hot wet mouth and the flow of her hair and her quick shallow breathing, punctuated by a few moments of clarity. Like how she’s pressing herself hard up against him and creating that combination of pain and pleasure which he has not felt in so long. Like how she slides her fingers under his belt right onto the skin of his stomach and breathes, “What do you think?” into his ear.

Think? She actually wants to know what he thinks?  This is a first, and he would even probably laugh but not for his brain screaming yes yes yes and please please please.

“Do it,” he growls through clenched teeth.

She liberates him in short order and he flinches when she touches him, mutters “Fuck,” as his eyes slam shut. She’s impressed, she tells him, by how hard he is and as much as his battered ego loves that he just shrugs it off because she doesn’t understand. She doesn’t know how hot she is, or how long it’s been since he’s had any decent human contact. She doesn’t know that she hasn’t seen the best of him yet or even how much she already means to him. He tries to help her with her jeans but it’s pointless; he’s lost the ability to multi-task and just dealing with her one small hand and keeping up with the way that she’s kissing him is taking all his energy. He pulls the lever to recline his seat which gives them more room and takes the pressure off. He watches in the low light as Linden kicks off her boots and peels down her jeans and her underwear with a couple of quick impatient tugs.

He does remember to ask her if she’s sure, but he doesn’t think about a condom ‘cause he never carries them anymore and by the time it occurs to him it’s too late anyway; he knows there ain’t going to be any stopping.  He takes her weight, light as she is, in his hands, holding onto her thighs at the start until she gets used to him. Her skin is smooth and white under his hands, luminous despite the darkness. But she does not leave his hands unsupervised for long, of course she doesn’t, she takes them and puts them where she wants them.

“Right there,” she tells him, and “Like that,” pressing her fingers overtop of his until he gets it right. He thinks she says something, that he smells good or something, which is another thing he would laugh at because how could he possibly but its inconceivable now for him to do anything except follow her pace and hold on. Sort of like how his whole life has been since he clattered into her office just over a week ago.  

Her hair keeps falling all around him, and she tosses her head to get it out of the way but he reaches up and pulls it back, holds it to his face, breathes in thorough it, grinning, and she likes that, indulging him, a soft smile playing on her lips. There’s a moment of dizzying eye contact that almost paralyses him then, there’s things he wants to say but can’t find the right words. What he does manage to do is tell her that she is fucking gorgeous and even though it isn’t nearly enough to do justice to how he feels about her she obviously doesn’t mind, chuffing softly, shaking her head.  She blinds him then with her incredibly mobile mouth pressed onto his and her lithe form moving against him like a hundred-and-fifteen pound tsunami. So he stops trying to think, stops trying to speak, and gives himself over to her, to the blur of desire and the heat and the wet and the trying to taste and feel all of her at once.

She’s got that strength, like he knew she would, and he thinks he won’t last any time at all but it turns out he’s wrong. Linden’s strong but she’s small, and feeling that, holding such softness and slightness in his hands, touching that total _femaleness_ of her, resets something in him. When her legs start to shake he takes over, soothing the tremble under his palms, telling her he’s got it. Some primitive level of brain function kicks in now and keeps him both strong and steady, better than he ever thought he could be again. Time stands still for the scarce few minutes more that it takes her to come all around him like a house on fire, fluttering like flames, gasping his _name_ and squeezing him in a way that forces him to lose it too, moments later, fast and hard. He’s sure that her body weight, light as she is, is the only thing that stops him from flying up into the stratosphere.

 

Possibly he sleeps, he doesn’t know. For sure Linden does, though, half-naked and draped over his body, keeping him warm. He vaguely remembers covering her with his jacket and that’s how he finds her when he stirs, however long later, he can’t even tell. It’s cold in the car and he holds her closer, tighter, his arms wrapped around her still form and a wisp of her hair tickling his face as he breathes. It’s too good to last, of course it is, but he can’t resist one more pass of his mouth over her temple, one more second of his face pressed in her hair as he feels her wake, and lift her head, wincing and groaning as she does so, from his shoulder.

 

He stands outside the car and smokes while she gets dressed.

She drives him the few remaining blocks to his car is in silence.

“Alright,” he tells her as he steps out of her car, nodding a quick thank-you for the chauffeur service, “see you tomorrow.” He expects her usual quick response, “Okay,” or “Don’t be late,” but receives silence, instead.

Once he’s out of the car he turns, and bends down to look back in at her.

He struggles to read the mix of emotions on her face.

Uncertainty, for sure.  Regret, maybe. Possibly guilt, remorse. Something cold squirms in his stomach.

Linden opens her mouth to speak.

Stupid possibilities of what she might say run through his mind. Like “Holder that was the best sex I’ve ever had” and “Holder we’re going to be doing that every day now so get your ass to the drugstore” or even “Thanks I needed that”.

But no, he sees as he studies her expression, her slightly parted lips, her troubled blue eyes, it’s none of the above. Dream on.

“Holder,” she begins, then pauses, searching for the right words, “Holder…that…” is all she says, and then she looks at him helplessly with an almost imperceptible shake of her head.

He realizes that the last fucking thing he wants is to have her feeling guilt and regret because of him. Or to mess up her life, however fucked he thinks it is. The next-to-last thing he wants is to screw up what he has with her, their work, their connection, whatever it has or hasn’t become.

He puts his hands up flat in front of him, then slides them slightly apart, making the umpire sign for ‘safe’.

“Chill, Linden,” he tells her now, then softly adds, “I get it,” even though he doesn’t, telling himself he will figure it out before tomorrow. He tries to flash her a smile but can only manage a quirk at the corner of his mouth, and a tiny shrug of his shoulders.

And he can read her face now, the swirling emotions are plainer, easier to see. Damn, he’s good. He sees relief. And gratitude. Maybe even peace.  But there’s a sadness there too, he sees, in her honest eyes, and that one tugs hard at him.  His own eyes sting.

“I’ll see you in the morning,” Linden says, after a long silence, and he nods and slams the car door.

He stands on the curb and watches while she pulls away, her eyes on him in the rear view mirror until she turns the corner and is gone.

 

His knees wobble slightly as he takes the stairs to his apartment. His shoulders are loose as he sheds his clothes as soon as he is inside the door. The hot water in the shower stings the slack, reddened skin of his cock and he wonders vaguely how long it has been since he’s had this feeling. Or if he’s ever really had it, like this.  

It’s a feeling he thought he’d forgotten, a lightness in his bones and a smoothness in his psyche. He’s shaky as he ducks his head to stand under the spray and he feels every drop of water as it courses down his body. He tries to name it, this feeling, this deep stillness that also makes him feel like jumping into the air.

He tries not to think about Linden but if it was difficult to do before it’s impossible now. He wonders what she’s doing, if she feels it too. Afterglow. Which is a stupid name for it because it’s really just hormones and brain chemicals – oxytocin, endorphins and dopamine, playing with him.

Fuck that.  

Its happiness.

That’s what this strange, unaccustomed feeling is. For the first time in practically forever, he’s happy. And god he hopes Linden’s feeling it too, because something tells him she gets precious little of it herself.

He eyes his phone on the bedside table as he slides into bed and then dismisses calling her as the worst possible idea. He has to turn this shit off; he can’t allow himself to go with it. And he will.

Tomorrow.

By tomorrow, he will get rid of it. He’ll put it somewhere where it can’t get to him. But for now, for tonight, he’s going to allow himself to feel it.  Out of respect. For her, for himself too. For them.

He kills the light and breathes deeply as he flakes out on his back. And he pretends that Sarah Linden is there beside him, curled towards his side and sleeping with her hand resting on his chest, right over top of his heart.  

He falls asleep in seconds.


End file.
